This week we will explore personalized experiences with news and advertising, as envisioned by leaders at the Washington Post and iStrategy Labs.

PART 1: Personalization ideas from The Washington Post

Digital leaders at the Washington Post say they want to give news consumers of the future a personalized information experience tailored to each individual’s unique interests and prior knowledge. We hear how the Post is experimenting in the digital space from Vice President of Technology and Chief Information Officer Shailesh Prakash and Director of Digital Products Rishit Shah.Reporting by Colin Hope, Reuben Stern and Olga Kyle.[To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

For more information:

In this text Q&A, the Washington Post’s Shailesh Prakash discusses the newspaper’s potential as a video news provider and the likely influence of the Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos.

PART 2: Digital brand experiences from iStrategyLabs

As consumer companies strive to engage customers in increasingly personalized ways, iStrategyLabs, based in Washington, D.C., is creating new kinds of brand experiences that take advantage of emerging digital and social technologies. We visit Chief Marketing Officer DJ Saul to see what they are doing.Reporting by Paige Hornor, Reuben Stern and Olga Kyle.[To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

Examples of iStrategyLabs campaigns:

Red’s Apple Ale Launcher Game – Online users were able to control (via computer) a mechanical launcher and watch streaming video of the launcher as it sent projectiles flying in a real bar setting.

General Electric Social Fridge – A refrigerator was wired to open and provide free beverages as soon as the required number of people checked into the location on Foursquare.

Live-tweeting honey badger – Thanks to a lot of sensors and wiring, a badger living in a zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa, is tweeting his doings to more than 10,000 Twitter followers.

Reuben Stern is the deputy director of the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and host and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.

The Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Futures Lab video update features a roundup of fresh ideas, techniques and developments to help spark innovation and change in newsrooms across all media platforms. Visit the RJI website for the full archive of Futures Lab videos, or download the iPad app to watch the show wherever you go. You can also sign up to receive email notification of each new episode.

http://www.istrategylabs.com/ Peter Corbett

Thank you for showcasing our work Reuben. If you’re in Dupont Circle in Washington DC sometime come drop by and see the lab!

Digital experts at the Washington Post are researching ways to let users personalize the news they consume through mobile devices and "smart watches."

“One of the fundamental reasons that we think people consume less content is because they don’t have the right context for it, or they don’t know a background behind a certain story … so we’re trying multiple ways to make the news more approachable to our audience.” -- Washington Post Director of Digital Products Rishit Shah

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MediaShift explains how traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, music and movies are changing with digital disruption and adapting their business models for a more mobile, networked world.